Women’s group UltraViolet staged a protest outside Fox News headquarters in New York demanding that the network fire O’Reilly. The group also planned to deliver a petition signed by more than 140,000 people calling for O’Reilly’s ouster. He was expected to return on April 24, but the April 11 broadcast would ultimately serve as his last. “Other than the vacation guest hosts, The Factor broadcast will remain unchanged until Mr. O’Reilly often takes off in and around his children’s spring break,” said Mark Fabiani, a spokesman for O’Reilly, in an emailed statement. The vacation involves a group of people, and the timing coincides with the period Mr.
“The arrangements, including airline and hotel reservations, for this vacation were made last October. O’Reilly announces that he will take some time off as part of a pre-planned “vacation.” He explained that he often takes vacation around the start of spring. The pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline also pulled their ads, saying, “We have temporarily put a hold on spots running on The O’Reilly Factor while we assess this situation.” At this point, at least 20 sponsors have backed away from O’Reilly.Īlec Baldwin does double duty as both President Trump and O’Reilly in an “SNL” sketch. “Tonight’s ‘Talking Points Memo’ is the scandal that everyone’s been talking about all week, a scandal no one thought I’d have the guts to address head on … about the shocking allegations of the abuse of power that have been leveled against the Obama administration,” Baldwin said as O’Reilly. I don’t think Bill did anything wrong.”Īlso on April 5, weight-loss and diet company Jenny Craig announced they, too, would pull their ads from “The O’Reilly Factor.” “As an organization, Jenny Craig condemns any and all forms of sexual harassment,” the company said in a statement. Because you should have taken it all the way. “I think he shouldn’t have settled personally I think he shouldn’t have settled. President Donald Trump offers support for O’Reilly during an interview with the Times. “I think he’s a person I know well - he is a good person,” Trump said. The same day, O’Reilly returned to the airwaves for the first time since the Times report broke, but he did not make any mention of the allegations against him or the loss of major sponsors. The bulk of the show was devoted to examining the question of whether former Obama administration National Security Advisor Susan Rice ordered the “unmasking” of the names of Americans found in contact with foreign intelligence targets in surveillance collected by the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency. “As a company we seek to partner with companies and programming that share our values of inclusion and diversity,” Hyundai said in their statement. “We will continue to monitor and evaluate the situation as we plan future advertising decisions.” After that, she said, O’Reilly was “hostile” to her and, in May, her weekly segments were put on hold.Īdvertisers begin to pull their support from “The O’Reilly Factor.” BMW, Mitsubishi, Mercedes Benz, Hyundai, Sanofi US, and Allstate were among the more than a dozen blue-chip advertisers who pulled their support from the show. She said she later refused his invite to his suite. O’Reilly was masturbating.” One of the cases involved a former Fox News staffer allegedly berated in front of colleagues by O’Reilly. O’Reilly called himself a “target for those who would harm me and my employer” in a statement issued on his website.Īmong the women featured in the Times report was Wendy Walsh, a former guest commentator on “The O’Reilly Factor” who stated she met O’Reilly at his invitation for dinner at the Hotel Bel Air in Los Angeles, and talked of her prospects for getting hired as a paid contributor.
It took less than three weeks for top-rated anchor Bill O’Reilly to tumble from the highest echelons of Fox News to the unemployment line.įrom the initial report on April 1 that O’Reilly had contributed to settlements to five women totalling $13 million over sexual harassment claims, to the Murdoch family’s announcement Wednesday that he was out at the network, the controversy that felled him unfolded in a whirlwind.Ī New York Times report states that Bill O’Reilly, Fox News and parent company 21st Century Fox issued five payouts to women totaling about $13 million in exchange for them to not pursue legal action against the conservative commentator. The women, who either worked for O’Reilly or appeared on his show, accused him of “a wide range of behavior,” according to the report, including “verbal abuse, lewd comments, unwanted advances and phone calls in which it sounded as if Mr.